"1776 Unites curriculum" Topic

This is one of the three curricula mentioned in the OP of the previous thread. This one I did not work on, and am not directly familiar with.

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Please, let's debate history curricula and not COVID or anything else.

And if you are not interested in the topic, why are you here?

Here's the group's homepage: 1776unites.com

A peaceful and prosperous American future must be built on a shared understanding of our past that is accurate and truthful, but also celebratory and aspirational.

The prevailing narrative of racial grievance has been corrupting the instruction of American history and the humanities for many decades, but has accelerated dangerously over the past year.

The most damaging effects of such instruction fall on lower income minority children, who are implicitly told that they are helpless victims with no power or agency to shape their own futures.

That is why 1776 Unites' offers a free high-school curriculum based on the "Woodson Principles" of Competence, Integrity, Transparency, Resilience, Witness, Innovation, Inspiration, Agency, Access, and Grace.

Join us for a session where you will learn what the 1776 Unites curriculum is and how these lesser-known stories from Black History can inform and inspire students of all backgrounds.

Perhaps the situation would be better if we didn't discuss or mix up politics with the study of history.

Or, here we go yet again just on another thread…?

Kevin, I am afraid that is impossible, and perhaps naive to expect. History is what the present finds useful to remember about the past. The only part of that definition that is fixed or objective is "past." What topics one chooses, what facts one musters, always derive from one's idea of memory and usefulness. That is "political".

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Their intro video is linked to the illustration of Colonel Shaw dying at the head of the 54th mass at Battery Wagner.

"The 1776 Unites curriculum offers authentic, inspiring stories from American history that show what is best in our national character and what our freedom makes possible even in the most difficult circumstances. 1776 Unites maintains a special focus on stories that celebrate black excellence, reject victimhood culture, and showcase African-Americans who have prospered by embracing America's founding ideals."

The first installment is designed for high school students and is available below. Lessons will be added monthly, with K-8 modules coming soon.

I assume this material would be supplemental to a broader curriculum.

Here's a question for anyone. especially teachers. Assuming, as usual, that you have way more material than you have time, what % of class time would you devote to specifically African-American topics? Assume it is a survey US history course, so black history is important but so are a lot -- dozens maybe -- of other topics and approaches.

I myself would probably vary content at least a bit based on class composition. Not sure that is philosophically defensible, though.

"History is what the present finds useful to remember about the past"

I can't even begin to agree with that, it justifies bias and assumes that 'the present' has the right to 'forget' what it doesn't find useful. This is what dictatorships did to history.

Agree completely. I wonder what 'historical' agenda that statement is following? It certainly isn't historical inquiry at all.

Further, the links to websites, overwhelmingly right wing propaganda, most certainly isn't history.

I am afraid that is impossible, and perhaps naive to expect. History is what the present finds useful to remember about the past. The only part of that definition that is fixed or objective is "past." What topics one chooses, what facts one musters, always derive from one's idea of memory and usefulness. That is "political".

No, that is absurd and completely ahistorical.

You guys are confusing history, which is a literary art form, with the past, which is its subject.

It is true, Gildas, that dictatorships manipulate history as they manipulate other forms of communication. But so do non-dictatorships.

The exact same set of facts can be arranged in support of radically different narratives -- good ones. Consider Bray Hammond's work on banks and politics during the Jacksonian period with Arthur Schlesinger's AGE OF JACKSON. Both won the same awards, and both are still studied. But they are utterly irreconcilable in their views of Jackson and the Bank War that defined his presidency. There are many other cases.

If you guys don't like my definition, give us your own.

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Both won the Pulitzer Prize for history. But one was a New Dealer and the other a conservative during the Eisenhower period.

W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman

"History is not what you thought. It is what you remember. All other history defeats itself." (1066 and All That)

Doc adds: memory is always partial, NOT always accurate, and not entirely under our control. I may forget what I wanted to remember (on the test!), and there may be bad things I would prefer to forget, and can't. History is our collective memory.

Uh, doc.
"1066 and all That" is a comic satire. Have you read it?
It deliberately exaggerates, omits and gets things wrong for comic effect.
It's the history that "everyone remembers" from school, falsely.
That's your role model???

Also…
The first thing I noticed when I clicked on your link was Newsmax as your source. Newsmax is currently being sued for hundreds of millions for slander and libel. It's the channel people watch who think Fox is too squishy liberal. I sell cable tv, so I'm familiar with the lineup.
Second thing I noticed was a certain individual who is not known for his intellectual rigor, to be kind.

Boy, Doc, you are persistent! But, apparently, like the last thread, if you don't like how history's going, you can always bury it.

The idea that history is nothing more than a nationalistic "feel good"pill and
has a goal to be "aspirational" is sheer and utter nonsense. This is the same line that totalitarian governments have touted for centuries.

There are always debates about the meaning of historical events, which is why you want a variety of viewpoints, and a wide range of sources incorporated into any curriculum. Just as science teaching begins with learning the basics of scientific method, history begins with learning the basics of historical method, and that doesn't involve cheerleading or indoctrination as a goal. There are objective facts in history. Not every view of events, such as the Lost Cause, can muster even a smattering of current historian's support, because it is easily disproven.

This doesn't even speak to the worry you have that black history will force out other teaching, and might be disproportionately represented. The record shows the history of blacks was actively suppressed by people worried about its effect on Americans. See Tulsa. A little redress might be in order.

Doc, I. Believe what you're advocating would be the single most harmful thing done to American history instruction in high school since the creation of the Texas School Board.

Ah, the Texas School Board. Textbooks controversy. i recall not being happy with a lot of the sanitization of history.

While I think 1776 United looks interesting, doc, and comes closer to what I would like to see, which is straight history, but with some zip to it, including inspiration, I feel like the CRT type complaints remain anecdotal.

Credible documentation on the problem seems hard to find. I am not saying it does not exist.Credible means a more scholarly examination not driven by media agendas.

I have to agree with John about Newsmax. And there are a couple of names mentioned that are red flags for lack of scholarship. But, there should be a seat for everyone and facts should win out.

'Truth' and 'facts' are not necessarily the same thing.

Bob, you just conceded my point with "current historian." Right, history changes as the present changes what it wants to remember.

Of course there are objective facts in history. Just like there are bricks in a building. But architecture is an art form, not a pile of bricks.

Newsmax is undoubtedly as agenda-driven as CNN or NBC or other media -- but scarcely more so. Anyway, attacking the source is generally a fallacy.

The idea that history is nothing more than a nationalistic "feel good" pill and has a goal to be "aspirational" is sheer and utter nonsense.

You are correct. Who said that is what history should be? Not me. Strawman.

As to black history "forcing out" other things: the container can only hold so much; we (collectively, society, through our choices about curricula) CHOOSE what to include. History is what the present finds useful to remember about the past. Are you (or, are we) saying black history is more important than the histories of dozens of other groups, many of whom also suffered in various ways? On what basis?

It is relatively easy to include black heroes when teaching, say, the abolitionists: Douglass and Tubman fit right in with Garrison and Brown. A lot of "black history" is simply American history that has blacks in it. No one is arguing against including that. GLORY is a fine film, and the experiences of drill and camp life, turning civilians into soldiers, as well as the experience of battle, was the same for white soldiers, so it has a broad usefulness in a history course. Plus everyone should know about Shaw and the 54th Mass.

If I were teaching a class that included a lot of black kids, I probably would spend time on some topics of special interest to them even if they had a less general applicability. I taught a college US survey (1865 to present) to a class that included a dozen Chinese exchange students (civil engineers) and spent more time than normal on the construction of the Central Pacific towards Promontory Utah. (Google Johnny Cash singing "Ribbon of Steel.") In fact, their research project was using CHINESE sources back home to tell me about the recruitment and fate of the thousands of young Chinese who were brought in to build it. Versus the "Hell on Wheels" Irish of the Union pacific. Learned a lot from that.

But you see, that is the POINT: there are always far more "facts" than there is time to learn: we have to select which ones we think are important enough to remember. And that selection process is what history is.

And each generation will select differently. And so may each society or culture, or each sub-culture. But if we are to be a community, we have to agree on some things that EVERYONE knows about.

YouTube link

Enjoy!

Bob, you just conceded my point with "current historian." Right, history changes as the present changes what it wants to remember.

No, Doc, it isn't trendiness or changed criteria, it is the application of simple tenets of the history discipline. The Lost Cause was a crock of horse manure from the very beginning under Jubal Early to the crap reenactors present to this present day. The criteria is documented facts and firm historical review.

Get a copy of Gary W. Gallagher's The Myth Of The Lost Cause and Civil War History. He assembled some of the finest historians of today into a collection that shows the falsity of that bit of bad history that was taught to every Southern child. Several of the entries are by Southern historians.

As a retired history teacher, I agree there is always way more to learn than there is time. So what are you going to focus on and what are you going to omit? If the goal is to make it one big happy feel good story we're leaving out some of the most important aspects of American history. Slavery, the Native American genocide, the civil rights movement and the response to it, inequality, the uglier aspects of the Progressive Era, these bear examination along with winning world wars and the 1950's.

I live in a pretty Anglo section of the country, but replete with it's own outrageous treatment of the Chinese and Native Americans, redlining of black and Asian neighborhoods. Oregon excluded blacks and Portland was run by the Klan in the 1920s. We need to embrace who we were and find a path to a better future. That begins with knowing what we were, the good and bad and remembering where we want to get to-those words in the Declaration.

The bad with the good. We don't get better as a nation until we embrace all the threads of our history and move forward. Our kids are critical pieces of that future.

we're leaving out some of the most important aspects of American history. Slavery, the Native American genocide, the civil rights movement and the response to it, inequality, the uglier aspects of the Progressive Era, these bear examination along with winning world wars and the 1950's.

Hard for me to imagine a history course that omits slavery! or the civil rights movement! I'd be (sadly) interested in seeing such a curriculum, which, if it exists, is certainly a bad one.

But I'm going to add a caveat about the natives. The "genocide" was first and foremost the diseases of the Columbian exchange; that devastation outweighed everything else combined. And was utterly unavoidable.

Bob, you are a one-hobby-horse man. Who hates the south.

"The finest historians of today"? Okay: each generation writes its own history. There was a time when the Lost Cause narrative was immensely useful in effecting a reconciliation between south and north after our bloodiest war, because it left the defeated their pride. If America decides to remember the war differently now (as long as it is grounded in facts and seeks the truth) then so be it. I daresay the history of the early 21st century, to be written a century from now, will not be what either one of us would anticipate today.

Who said that is what history should be? Not me. Strawman.

The person that said that history should be aspirational and a feel good exercise was YOU.

A peaceful and prosperous American future must be built on a shared understanding of our past that is accurate and truthful, but also celebratory and aspirational.

The prevailing narrative of racial grievance has been corrupting the instruction of American history and the humanities for many decades, but has accelerated dangerously over the past year.

The most damaging effects of such instruction fall on lower income minority children, who are implicitly told that they are helpless victims with no power or agency to shape their own futures.

I am far from a one hobby horse man, Doc. I'm not the one trying to promote 1779 Unites. And I find too many on the right confuse honest criticism of a group or a region as hatred. I do not hate the South. I do believe that many of our National issues have historically,and are presently, started, in that region and its demonstrable problems, which it historically either ignored, censored, or suppressed rather than confront and solve.

As a writer of history books, I can testify that, at least in eras as well documented as the ACW, there are more facts known than can be crammed into a narrative without destroying it completely. Which facts get included, and how they are fit together (interpreted) is an art, not a science.

Certainly, the bad should be included with the good. But the good should also be included. Which one gets the emphasis depends on your objective (or even on your subjective assumptions).

I wondering when you'll all learn not to respond to him?

I know of few cases where high schools have not spoken to the positive aspects of the United States experiment. If anything, most lower level history education has too strongly accented the American Exceptualism end of the spectrum, rather than a more measured view of our past.

This latest brew-up is entirely manufactured by a few RW media platforms to play to a specific minority of our population because they see a shift in emphasis in the American narrative that they don't like. It has nothing to do with history, reflects nothing true about most high school curricula and how it is taught, and is HIGHLY political. The vast majority of working historians and teachers find it a bit of pernicious silliness.

Repiqueone

Yup.

This latest brew-up is entirely manufactured by a few RW media platforms to play to a specific minority of our population because they see a shift in emphasis in the American narrative that they don't like. It has nothing to do with history, reflects nothing true about most high school curricula and how it is taught, and is HIGHLY political. The vast majority of working historians and teachers find it a bit of pernicious silliness.

And you guys know this how? Angels and devils; my side is the angels, so . . . .

donlowry, yes indeed.

History, and history courses and curricula, are indeed a political and social battlefield, as this thread exemplifies. With one or both sides claiming, and perhaps sincerely (but wrongly) imagining, that they are "objective".

And CNN and Newsmax are totally objective news sources. Rrrriiiigggghhhhhttttt.

History is what the present finds useful to remember about the past.

No,Doc, the sides are not equivalent. Your bunch, for political and profit reasons, is creating a false problem and trying to insert a bad solution into American High Schools. You have predicated the vast infusion of Critical Race Theory into curricula that simply hasn't happened. You are attempting to rile up parents on a false premise, and you are advocating for a highly political attack on local school boards and teachers that has nothing to do with reality.

All my side is trying to do is protect a history discipline we love, a school system trying to serve our youth,and a nation that is undergoing healthy change, from unwarranted and hurtful attacks that have no basis. These attacks are going to be part of the history of our nation, catalogued alongside other acts that we will not be proud of.

No angels and devils, just demonstrable facts vs ignorance as it has always been.

But I'm going to add a caveat about the natives. The "genocide" was first and foremost the diseases of the Columbian exchange; that devastation outweighed everything else combined. And was utterly unavoidable.

Really. You'll tell that story to the Sioux at Standing Rock and the Navajo. You'll tell that story in relation to the Trail of Tears. These are simply a form of ethnic cleansing. And your Columbian nightmare doesn't even begin to address the cultural genocide of the Indian boarding schools like Carlisle. I think Native Americans would take issue with your characterization. I'm not and I do.

And CNN and Newsmax are totally objective news sources. Rrrriiiigggghhhhhttttt.

Doc. YOU are the one who linked to Newsmax in your OP!
Are you throwing them under the bus now?

I've never seen the definition of "history" treated in such a cavalier manner before.
Why not just come out and call it "propaganda" but that you want American history to be propaganda that you approve of.

KSmyth, you did not address my POINT. Many bad things happened to the Indians, but the first and greatest, outweighing all the rest combined, was diseases over which no one had any control. That is simply a fact which should not be minimized, much less ignored.

John, no, history aims at the truth. It never quite hits the target, but some writers get closer than others. But there is so much — such as motives — which we cannot ever quite know. And observers cannot even agree about what happened with two cars at an intersection. We aim at truth, and must, but it is naive to imagine we hit it.

I am not throwing Newsmaxunder the bus. I don't read it much, but am sure it is as trustworthy as the mainstream media, which I hold in disdain and contempt. Best is to read many sources and keep an open mind. I do know that Fox and Newsmax regularly cover important stories other media ignore.

So John, IS history the truth? Is it possible, for example, to write a true account of the Pelopponesian War? Or of John Brown's career? I have studied Brown for sixty years and am no closer to understanding him than when I was a teen memorizing JOHN BROWN'S BODY. From a human perspective Pontus Pilate had it right. Truth exists, what happened happened, but our feeble human ability to discern it is very limited. If you disagree, tell me a truth, a whole truth, and nothing but the truth about any complex event.

Doc, was the Lost Cause a true and honest recital of the South's actions in the civil war and it's aftermath? Or was it propaganda? It was taught from the late 19th century until the last decade in some areas of the South. Every time I hear some Bozo expound on State's Rights, or even tariffs being the true cause of the civil war, I know it's still being taught in some jerk water rural town somewhere in the South. Why don't you organize to halt that affront to history instead of fighting a CRT phantasm?

Relativism of fact and truth is the last refuge of a scoundrel, not Patriotism, which is an earlier refuge.

Like other myths, the Lost Cause account contains some truths while concealing others. You are far too certain of what you know.

So Bob, tell me the truth about John Brown. Hero or villain? Sane or a nut? Freedom fighter or terrorist? Justified or not? wAS our bloodiest conflict the consequence of his actions?

Good luck with that.

It is not relativism of facts, but relevance of facts.

He was a fanatic, and probably a mental case, whose effects caused him to be blind to the reality of his mission. His actions were viewed differently by abolitionists and slave holders at the time, but the law was enforced.

History usually isn't about heroes and villains but simply what happened. Moral judgements are made after that is established. In some cases the judgements are less moral than a reflection of the society making them.

John Brown was neither a hero or villain. He was a man of unbalanced and maniacal religious based beliefs that led a doomed, illegal, and foolish attack on U.S. property ( rather like some of the January 6th crowd) and paid the price.

Our bloodiest conflict was not because of his acts, though he was used as a propaganda tool by the North after the war began. The war had many clear causes, primary among them was the issue of slavery and its expansion or elimination in the United States.

I suspect you can understand his singleminded maniacal dedication, if not his mission. His totemic use was the most important impact, not much else.

Ps the US has a long and often bloody history of crackpots, which may be an US steroidal inflation of the English eccentric.

Equating John Brown with the terrorists who attacked the Capitol on January 6 is spot on.
Plus he should have been hanged for his murders in Kansas. Another similarity to January 6 there is that he had some of the agenda driven willing to excuse his vile acts.
He failed. He was hanged for Harper's Ferry. But he should have been hanged for Kansas. That's what happens when you excuse terrorism. As some try to excuse the January 6 terrorists.
Had he been hanged for Kansas, there would have been no Harper's Ferry.
And no cool song.

Hi doc mcb,
There is no reasonable discussion or even debate in play here. Repiqueone and Brechtel have chosen their intellectual and ideological hill to die upon. Good luck to them.

IMO, your time and intellect will be far more valuable if devoted to the curriculum project you have described. The American education system, from DC down to the local school districts, will require a fire hose to clean out and upon that depends the salvation of our American republic, our Constitution and our God-given rights as citizens.

Strictly my opinion, of course.

B